Oberon’s Cure

Friday 22nd June

Doors Open: 6.00pm Performance: 7.30pm

Gilbert White & The Oates Collection are proud to host the The Rude Mechanical Theatre Company’s production Oberon’s Cure. The play is inspired by the characters from a midsummer’s night dream and tells another magical story of love, chaos and confusion…

Synopsis

The impossibly handsome Captain Theseus (really Prince of Athens in disguise) has plucked the ravishing Hippolyta from the front lines of the formidable Amazonian forces entrenched in Attica and has with the assistance of his corporal, Flatulo, dragged her (bound hand and foot) into a forest near Athens. Through cunning and brute force she escapes only to encounter an ageing Oberon, King of the Fairies, who tries unsuccessfully to seduce her despite his increasingly diminished returns in the seduction department.

Theseus meanwhile has given chase, but is soon diverted by his own encounter with Titania, Oberon’s much younger wife. Theseus is immediately enchanted. To protect her own identity as Queen of the Fairies, however, Titania allows him to think her name is Mrs Cloudberry, actually the name of the poor swineherd Jeremy’s sow. The innocent changeling Briony, Oberon’s ward and Jeremy’s sweetheart, thinks that Mrs Cloudberry’s heart has been won by a human and Mr Cloudberry’s inability to ‘play with’ her must be because he’s pining. Confusion and chaos spreads.

Dr Dropwart, already called upon to deal with Mr Cloudberry’s own problems in the seduction department, is asked by Oberon to find a potion which will make him irresistible to Hippolyta. Oberon discovers, however, that he has bitten off much more than he can chew with the Amazonian queen when she demands of him to bring her in turn blackbirds to sing to her, the moon to light her way through the forest and finally Titania’s crown. Willoughby and Mother Sneezewort, servants to Oberon and Titania respectively, make sure that the blustering and incompetent doctor’s potions cause the maximum of chaos with almost everyone in the forest being affected at some point or other. Even the unfortunately afflicted Flatulo finds love only for it to be snatched away again by the ultimately unassailable barrier between human and fairy worlds. All things lead to the Midsummer moon where revelations and vows are made, lovers meet, and just deserts are served.

Please note

Bring your own low backed chairs and warm clothes. It can get cold. The show is aimed at adults, but mature children will enjoy it. If the show is cancelled due to the weather money will not be refunded, but you may come free to any subsequent performance as long as you re-book.

Tickets

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Gilbert Whites House

Gilbert White was aged 7 or 8 when the White family moved from the Vicarage on Selborne’s Plestor, to this house, called ‘The Wakes’ (named after the Wake family who had lived here previously). At that time the property would have been no more than a ‘two up, two down’ but over the subsequent years lots of extensions and additions have been made, creating the long sizeable house you see today.

The rooms have been restored following descriptions in White’s own correspondence and include a chair he used at Oriel College, Oxford (loaned from the College), items of contemporary furniture, family portraits and bed hangings embroidered for him by his aunts.

On display is the original manuscript of his book, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, which was purchased with generous help from English Heritage and others.